People Are Lining Up for a Paddling at Fletcher's

Living in the Washington area without at some point hopping into a canoe or kayak is like moving to Colorado and never strapping on a pair of skis, or going to the beach without taking a dip. We are beneficiaries of what justifiably is called the finest stretch of urban whitewater in the world. Why waste it?

One small problem getting started is equipment. Gotta find a boat, obviously, plus paddles, life jackets and a safe place to practice. Fortunately, the Canoe Cruisers Association takes care of all that.

Every Tuesday evening all summer, CCA volunteers pop up at Fletcher's Boat House below Chain Bridge at 6:15 or so to take whoever shows up onto the C&O Canal for an introductory session. The format splits neophyte canoeists and kayakers into two groups for 15-minute skull sessions, then it's onto the water for an hour or so of easy, flatwater paddling, followed by a picnic (bring your own food).

For this service, CCA charges the staggering sum of $4 a person, all of which goes to GSI, the concessionaire that owns the boats. CCA has been doing these lessons for close to half a century. They used to be free. Oh well.

The lead instructor is a gray-haired solon from Montgomery County named Jim Finucane, a latecomer to the scene. He's only been teaching since 1974, several years after two local paddling legends, John Heidemann and the late John Seabury Thomson, started the program.

The lessons fell on hard times for a while. They used to be twice a week, one day at Fletcher's and one at Swain's Lock in Potomac. But the Swain's boat concession closed last year, and for a while demand faltered and sessions went to every other week at Fletcher's. It was a mistake, Finucane says, because people lost track of when to come and attendance plummeted.

Now it's back to every Tuesday, and folks are back to flocking. "We had 30 people on July 3," Finucane said. Last week, 30 more turned up.

They ranged in age from 4-year-old Madeleine Fontana from Arlington, who paddled with her aunt, Rose Sparks, while her mom and baby sister patrolled the towpath, to Howie Kreitzman of Northwest, who said it was his first time paddling since Boy Scout camp 50-odd years ago, "but we didn't have kayaks back then."

Fletcher's, for those who haven't had the pleasure, is the most beautiful place in the city, Washington's timeless window on the Potomac. The little pale-green bait and boat shack has been there in one form or another since the late 1800s, and the sweeping view to the Virginia shore through dappled sycamore leaves hasn't changed in the 37 years these eyes have feasted upon it.

If you stick around at Fletcher's you will run across people old enough to remember the days before air conditioning and TV, when Washingtonians built summer shacks along the river and slept and picnicked there to escape the heat. You'll also meet some pretty good fishermen, but that's another story.

"When I come through that tunnel," said Janice Wolf, speaking of the mossy, dripping underpass that runs beneath the canal to get to Fletcher's, "I feel like I've put the world of work and traffic behind me." Wolf, a volunteer instructor who works at National Geographic, is from the Midwest and learned to canoe on the Boundary Waters Canoe Area Wilderness in Minnesota. Washington, she said, has surprised her with its unexpected array of outdoor delights.

We all donned life jackets and signed waivers (a sign of sick times). Finucane took the canoeists aside and explained the J, brace and sweep strokes while Star Mitchell ran through the basics with kayakers. Both emphasized that the most perilous times for capsizing are getting into and out of the boat, and Finucane reminded everyone to look both ways before crossing the towpath, where bicyclists roar through.